What is Second Life?
…And why am I going to write about it so much?
Second Life is a virtual world that, at it’s most basic, is a glorified chat program. It’s also so much more than that, though.
Last December, Michael Stackpole sent out an invitation for all his ‘followers’ to visit him in Second Life. With promises of writer’s workshops and industry connections, I thought I’d check it out. What I found actually amazed me.
I had heard about Second Life before but, even in my tech-savvy brain, I didn’t realise how advanced the interface had become. Assuming you have a decent enough computer, the virtual world of Second Life is pretty close to our ‘first life.’ If you can do it in the real world, you can do it (or a close approximation) in Second Life (yes, even that). Oh yeah, and you can fly too. How great is that?
Well, with a bit of a learning curve, I stepped into a new world and all of the sudden I saw the possibilities for myself. Instead of being stuck in a small, suburban city, the world became available to me. Writers from around the world could interact in real-time, sharing their work, offering critiques, marketing themselves, and even promoting their ‘real-life’ work. It is a very powerful tool.
If you’d like to join me in Second Life, you can download the viewer here. Once you’ve gone through a short tutorial on how to get dressed and move about etc… you’ll be able to visit the rest of the world. I suggest you begin your visit at Third Life Books by following this link and clicking on Teleport Now. This is a newbie-friendly area for writers and readers alike. It is also where I run my writing workshop (more on that later).
Second Life will take a bit to learn, and you’ll likely find yourself upgrading from the free service to the ‘micro-economy’ model before long. Doing so lets you buy some nicer clothes, a better body for your avatar, and some hair that actually blows in the wind instead of something that looks like it was made with plasticine, but all are worth it.
If you’re like me, you’ll be building stuff and meeting new people in no time. If you’re lucky, also like me, you may also find that someone special and get married in your Second Life. But that’s also a story for later…
